Reid
On Drafting Sheppard - April 20, 2002
Opening remarks: “We took, with our first pick,
[CB] Lito Sheppard out of the University of Florida. We feel
very good about it. We’re excited to add him to our secondary,
our veteran secondary. Not only is he a good corner, he’s
also a good return man. So he’ll work in on punt returns
and kickoff returns. He’ll have an opportunity to learn
from KR/PR Brian Mitchell about the pro game.”
On whether his return abilities were a factor in getting him
drafted: “Number one was his play at corner. We really
felt he was a fine player. We put 23 names up on the board.
We knew we would have one, two, or three of those guys at
the end of the 25th pick and that’s how it worked.”
On how many names were left on his 1st round hit list:
“There were three. Three names.”
On whether there are any concerns of his height: “You
can do the studies and pull out the stats. There are quite
a few 5’10” corners out there playing. We felt very
comfortable. I didn’t feel like size was a factor here.
He plays very physical. Both he and CB (Philip) Buchanon are
about the same size. Lito weighs a little bit more than he
does. He’s really a physical player.”
On whether he thought there was anyone who you hoped would
slip down but didn’t: “I didn’t. I didn’t
know any other way to do it other than put the names up there
of guys who we felt comfortable with and like I told the (war)
room, ‘If we get any one of these guys here, we got a
good football player.’ I think everybody came out feeling
very good about Lito and what he’s going to do for this
football team.”
On whether he will compete for time with CB Al Harris:
“We’ll see. He’ll come in here and learn
and we’ll see what happens from there.”
On whether he considered trading up at all: “We
messed with all different kinds of offers there. We kept our
ears open and we had done that in the past. We also knew if
we hung right there we’d end up with a good player.”
On whether there were any teams he worried would take
Sheppard: “There were the Jets and there was San
Francisco sitting right behind us. They came up and took a
corner right after we did [Miami’s Mike Rumph] and I’m
sure they would have like to snagged Lito up there.”
On whether Spurrier coaching in the NFL and the St. Louis
Rams 4 WR sets had any thing to do with drafting Sheppard:
“Not necessarily. We have a veteran group. Guys who
have been in the league a while and are getting a little bit
older and I want to make sure that as we sit in this position
as a football team that we had some youth behind them that
could come in and play if something were to happen to one
of those guys. Between the combination of Lito and Al you
have a couple of good young players there.”
On what Sheppard does to separate himself from other CBs:
“I thought Lito played very physical. He’s extremely
quick. If you go back, and I know you guys will, look at his
performances as a high school player, he comes out as an all-state
baseball, football, and basketball player. You are looking
at a very good athlete. He goes to Florida and excels. He
started as a freshman and all the way through. There’s
pretty good competition in Florida. He stepped up and played
very physical football.”
On how much it helped Sheppard to practice against the Florida
offense: “We had great film on him over the years. We
put together what we call ‘hit tapes,’ and that
is every ball thrown in his direction. In a short period of
time, we can get a pretty good feel of the player as a pass
coverage defender and again, I thought he did an exceptional
job against the passing game.”
On whether he was surprised the Jets did not select Sheppard:
“I was a little shocked he got as far down as 26th. I
could probably say that about a handful of guys. You never
know. You go into this thing and so you base it on a percentage.
You take a percentage of 26. If you have a 10% margin of error,
you are looking at 23 names. Up there you are guaranteed at
least of getting one of those. The average is about 80% which
is a 20% error margin. You are going to get one of those guys
at least. So anywhere in between the 21 and 23 number we felt
pretty comfortable with. I was surprised he did get that far.”
